Too Stupid to Survive (Extreme Sports Edition)

by Mark Steyn
Steyn on Culture
February 15, 2018

https://www.steynonline.com/8461/too-stupid-to-survive-extreme-sports-edition

Sir Francis Bacon: Just another boring dead loser you don't need to know anything about.

As longtime patrons of SteynOnline well know, every so often I'm minded, after the latest Absurdity of the Day, to caution that "sometimes a society becomes too stupid to survive". The latest example thereof, alas, is too sad and pathetic even for my dismal catchphrase. On Monday the Attorney-General of the United States addressed the National Sheriffs Association thus:

"I want to thank every sheriff in America. Since our founding, the independently elected sheriff has been the people's protector, who keeps law enforcement close to and accountable to people through the elected process... The office of sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement."

"We must never erode this historic office," Sessions continued.

After which the world went nuts, starting with a CNN pearl-clutcher of a headline:

Sessions invokes 'Anglo-American heritage' of sheriff's office

The fact that expensively educated but ignorant reporters thought the phrase newsworthy made it even newsworthier - after which its newsworthiness became accusatory. Newsweek:

Jeff Sessions Faces Fresh Racism Charge After Praising 'Anglo-American Heritage of Law Enforcement'

Which prompted the usual professional grievance-mongers to weigh in:

NAACP Critical of Attorney General Jeff Sessions Latest Racially-Tinged Statement

Followed by one of a mere hundred citizens, in a nation of a third of a billion, who gets to sit in the self-described "world's greatest deliberative body". United States Senator Brian Schatz deliberated thus:

Do you know anyone who says "Anglo-American heritage" in a sentence? What could possibly be the purpose of saying that other than to pit Americans against each other? For the chief law enforcement officer to use a dog whistle like that is appalling. Best NO vote I ever cast.

And then one of a mere 45 citizens, in a nation of a third of a billion, who gets to be lieutenant governor of an entire state. (My own is among the five that manage without, happily.) California gubernatorial candidate and current Number Two Gavin Newsom:

Reminder that our Attorney General is an outright racist who wants us all to acknowledge "Anglo-American heritage."

We live in wretchedly moronic times in which even senators, lieutenant governors and other panjandrums who bestride the land know nothing of anything that happened before last Tuesday. Yet one who cannot plead that excuse is a constitutional law professor - such as Harvard University's Laurence Tribe:

Good for @brianschatz! He's the real deal.

Indeed. Perhaps Senator Schatz will now call out other racist dog-whistlers, like this guy:

...one of the oldest privileges in Anglo-American jurisprudence...

Oh, hang on, that was Laurence Tribe who said that. Okay, what about this racist dog-whistler?

The foundational case in the Anglo-American legal tradition is Thomas Bonham v. College of Physicians, commonly known as Dr. Bonham's Case.

Oh, wait, that's Professor Tribe, too. Golly, you'd almost get the impression "Anglo-American" is a common term of reference to the legal heritage of the United States:

...a writ that has been in place in the Anglo-American legal system for over 700 years...

...the foundation of Anglo-American law...

...adheres to rule of law, habeas corpus, basic principles of Anglo-American legal system...

That's Jeff Sessions' fellow racist dog-whistler Barack Obama speaking variously as senator, presidential candidate and president - and all found after twenty seconds of Googling by my old National Review comrade Charles C W Cooke. All week long, I've been asked by readers to weigh in on this "fresh racism charge", and I honestly can't bear the thought: What's the point of "debating" with the likes of Schatz and Newsom, men of great eminence who know nothing and who are too stupid to resist advertising their stupidity to the world? Or with those such as Tribe, who surely know otherwise but are cheering on the know-nothings because they perceive it as advantageous to do so?

"Anglo-American" is (or was) a commonly understood expression ...in America, which broke away from England and thus concocted a phrase recognizing that the United States did not spring fully-formed from the head of Zeus on July 4th 1776 but was the beneficiary of a centuries-old legal inheritance that, notwithstanding its differences with George III, it chose to retain. Within the non-revolutionary parts of the English-speaking world - that's to say, Her Majesty's Dominions - we'd just say "English law". I certainly do:

...the defining characteristic of English law...

...the heart of English law...

...I rejoice in English law's ancient disdain for...

That doesn't mean laws for ethnic English persons, or white people, or hoity-toity types who star in upscale Oscar bait distributed by Harvey Weinstein's Open Bathrobe Pictures; it means a legal system developed in England and exported around the world - and distinct from alternative legal systems, such as the Napoleonic Code or Sharia or Native-American healing circles or whatever's your bag. Until well into our own time, acts of local legislatures around the Commonwealth could be struck down as "repugnant to the laws of England". Even today the ultimate court of appeal for many sovereign nations around the planet remains the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, where you'll find English law lords weighing in on cases from the Bahamas, Mauritius, Brunei, Jamaica, Kiribati... Even the ostentatiously ignorant such as Newsom or Schatz will recognize that those countries are not obviously white or "anglo".

Unlike Mauritius or Trinidad, the thirteen colonies revolted against England ...but they opted not to throw the jurisprudential baby out with the imperial bathwater: hence, "Anglo-American". Magna Carta, my book on which personally autographed copies of are exclusively available from the SteynOnline bookstore, with special member pricing for Mark Steyn Club members ...where was I? Oh, right: Magna Carta is part of the American legal inheritance as much as it is part of the Australian.

To address the particular point of contention, sheriffs of varying roles are found not only in America but in Australia, Canada, South Africa, Ireland, India... Hmm. What do those countries have in common? At this point it's traditional on the Internet to type "Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?", perhaps accompanied by an amusing gif. But to be honest, I'm so bloody bored by a public discourse that has dwindled down to a handful of pop-culture references and nothing else - especially when, in this case, the very pop-culture reference is about a vast gaping absence of historical knowledge that has only metastasized in the three decades since Ben Stein articulated it, to the point where Senator Schatz and Lieutenant Governor Newsom can't even recall Robin Hood: "Oh, yeah. Kevin Costner. He came to my fundraiser. Sheriff of Nottingham, Sheriff of Orange County. Weird. Whassup with that?"

So instead Schatz and Newsom hear "Anglo-American" and assume it's like "African-American" or "Hispanic-American" - a racial identity group: The Obamas like their art "African-American", Jeff Sessions likes his sheriffs "Anglo-American". We are all tribalists now.

The societal moronization necessary to propel such a "controversy" to network news stories and leading newspaper headlines is profound and terrifying. In 2016, after my column in The Australian on Bill Leak's persecution by Oz's repulsive multiculti enforcers, Anthony Smith of Rainbow Beach, Queensland wrote to the paper's letters page:

What is being lost sight of is that there are those in our midst all too ready to exert state power by silencing intellectual rigour.

Mr Smith is referring to the way "politically correct" thought-policing is designed to shoo cartoonists and columnists and playwrights and university professors away from serious inquiry on ever more topics: every time the PC hard men make an example of a Bill Leak, they underline to ten thousand fainter-hearted souls that addressing certain subjects can be dangerous to your career prospects (fatally so, in Bill's case). But we've advanced far beyond questions of intellectual rigor to intellectual rigor mortis, to a world where, to demonstrate one's ideological bona fides, it is necessary to boast of what one doesn't know - until the most prominent beneficiaries of the "Anglo-American" inheritance (senators, lieutenant governors, Ivy League professors) are so unmoored from that inheritance that they can only stagger about in circles, skating deeper and deeper furrows into the ever thinner ice of the hyper-present tense.

Today's America may be vibrantly diverse, but its legal system, like that of other Common Law countries, remains largely English, not Haitian or Yemeni, or even Swedish or French. That may be unfortunate - #OscarsSoWhite, #CourtroomsSoAnglo, etc - but it's nevertheless what we used to call a fact - or reality. And to deny reality is not a small thing. It is, in fact, a defining attribute of totalitarian societies, which find themselves always obliged to enforce official lies.

So our descent into self-moronization will not end well. It is revealing that Schatz and Newsom and Tribe all took to Twitter, instantly. One day someone less well-guarded than the Attorney-General will accidentally say "Anglo-American" in a speech or radio interview and be clubbed to a pulp as he's returning home. One wonders, indeed, whether it wouldn't be better just to cut to the chase and get on with a full-scale civil war. Which side would you bet on? In 1597, Sir Francis Bacon wrote:

Ipsa scientia potestas est.

That's Latin-American for "Knowledge itself is power".

Oh, yeah? Sez who? Some guy who invented bacon? How Islamophobic is that? Knowledge is power, France is bacon: What's the diff? Maybe, in a new age of sustained historical vandalism and instant mass media, ignorance is power - which is why Brian Schatz gets to confirm federal judges and you don't.

~Programming note: Tonight at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific Mark will be joining Tucker Carlson live coast to coast across America - with a rerun at 12 midnight Eastern. If you are in the presence of the receiving apparatus, we hope you'll dial him up.

If you prefer Steyn in non-visual format, then tomorrow, Friday, for Mark Steyn Club members Mark will be launching his latest nightly audio adventure in Tales for Our Time. Don't miss it! And, if you've got some kith or kin who enjoys classic fiction, we have a special Steyn Club Gift Membership that includes a welcome gift of a handsome hardback or a CD set personally autographed by Mark. More details here.

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85 Reader Comments

Preston Rinehart • Feb 20, 2018 at 23:04

Yea, prayers for all the kids coming up in this mess. I don't think I could live in CA

Preston Rinehart • Feb 20, 2018 at 22:51

As a Sons of Confederate Veterans member from the Old Dominion, let me remind those who may be too willing to go there that the Civil War was a horrible event which ruined the Southern states and its people for generations and set back Constitutional values to positions from which we have never really recovered. It was absurd to think that 5 million Southerns could stand up to 29 million militarily, notwithstanding the political stakes. The result: they lost EVERYTHING, including their honor

Preston Rinehart • Feb 20, 2018 at 03:39

Mark, thanks for this. For all you good folks on the scroll, be thankful that we did not have HRC succeed Obama. Just vote, every time. I didn't think we could ever move back in the right direction

John Shuba • Feb 19, 2018 at 18:48

The term "Sheriff" is SO Anglo-American it almost hurts. (Actually the term "Anglo-Norman" may be more appropriate.) The ofiice goes back to at least the twelfth century and feudal (post-Conquest) England. A "reeve" was a royal official charged by the King to represent the King in different areas and to supervise the census and collect taxes. There were "Port Reeves" for seaports, "Town Reeves", "Forest Reeves" and Reeves for other locales. There was also a self-help, voluntary law enforcement organization called a "scir" made up of the heads of a hundred different families within an area. The scir provided unpaid (but compulsory) service from male family members to patrol roads, arrest fugitives, form posses and carry out rudimentary law enforcement.

Eventually the scir became the geographic area called a "shire." A reeve who was the kings representative to the shire became the "shire reeve" or.... "Sheriff." Sheriff's quickly took on law enforcement functions such as providing some training the hundreds, making sure the men practiced their longbow and holding accused criminals in custody until the next assizes. Shires eventually became counties as hereditary feudal nobles (Earls, the equivalent of the Norman "count") were designated to rule them in the name of the King.

The "Sheriff" became elected officials in Post- Revolutionary America in a day when the county was the most important jurisdiction of local government. It was also believed that the power of law enforcement was a critical government power and "The People" should have some say in who held the office.

Naturally ALL common law is from the Anglo-Saxon tradition and the office of Sheriff is a part of that tradition. Therefore Sessions was right, Right RIGHT when he spoke of Sheriff as key elements of "our" Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence.

Robert Mignella • Feb 18, 2018 at 17:59

This article is so well written I am making Mr. Steyn one of my Lenten alms giving recipients. His work is a form of mercy and charity to the world in desperate need of correction. Thank you, Mark.

Mitch Hyman • Feb 17, 2018 at 02:07

Marcus, your summation, "ignorance is power" does have a pedigree:

War Is Peace
Freedom Is Slavery
Ignorance Is Strength...

Murray Buttner • Feb 16, 2018 at 18:55

Here is some pertinent Anglo-poetry from the middle of the last century. Hope it isn't too triggering to anyone:

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Mitchell Young • Feb 16, 2018 at 09:33

"For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies"

James Morphew • Feb 16, 2018 at 09:26

I sure hoop Sessions doesn't apologize. Following Mark's great points, there is something subtle, and naturally human, behind this decline in respect for meaning, the quick leaping to blame. It may be the enjoyment of blame (-storming), or the thrill of victimization, even as non-victims speak up for the imagined victims. There is also some self-righteousness about it that reminds me of the village hanging popularity or the lynchings of days gone by. The self-control, the stiff upper lip, and even turning the cheek have gone out of fashion, replaced by the more active, and enjoyable, immediate accusation of wrong, minor or major, clothed in the sanctimony of helping and improving. This will be a complex one to fight, the perfect storm of human motivation and political correctness.

Patti Engelke • Feb 16, 2018 at 09:13

Mark - I have an issue with this article! It's too funny, too perfect, too on point! It makes me want to run out the front door screaming "the idiots are coming! The idiots are coming!". What has become of the Tea Party? Oh yeah they have jobs, and families, and a life they would like to enjoy #idiotfree! God save the Trump!

tug • Feb 16, 2018 at 07:42

Addicted to Brilliance, I worked in the Post Office during Christmas break and summers as a "temp" going through college, the work "environment" was an education in itself. One of my take- away statements from that time was the expression of a worker about getting his pay check, "Son, I need that money more than a pig needs its slop". How does that relate to this "one for the ages" post from Mark? I need Mark's brilliance to help me through "interesting times". The "comments" from "Club Members" add to the enlightening experience.

Alex Baldor • Feb 16, 2018 at 07:33

Mark,
My only comment beside my full agreement to what you wrote in your essay is that I was curious to find out what was fatal to career prospect of Bill and the link that you gave required me to subscribe to the Australian. I suffer from information overload and have no intention to add to that and pay for that

Mark replies:

See here.

Ray Winchester • Feb 16, 2018 at 05:41

Funny. I was just flipping through TV channels and came across RT (Russian backed channel).
They were talking about this. They were asking US citizens who said this phrase "I sincerely hope we can protect what is called the great writ - a writ that has been in place in the Anglo-American legal for 700 years" (2006)
Most replied Donald Trump. Only 1 got it right, Barack Obama.
More.
They were then asked who said this "All Americans are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country". Again most answered Donald Trump. Answer was Bill Clinton.
Problem when a Russian backed TV channel does this. Would CNN? (our BBC are more out of touch).
Another question they asked "There are too many migrants now... Germany cannot become an Arab country. No it was NOT Jeff Sessions or Mike Pence. The answer was Dalai Lama. They did have multiple choice.
I sometimes watch these channels. You know they are Russian or Chinese sponsored but they do ask questions that MSM don't or are scared to. You also know they are backed by countries, so take anything internationally political with a pinch of salt.

Alex Baldor

Ray Winchester • Feb 16, 2018 at 07:48

The Russian demonstrate to the world that USA is too stupid to survive and any country that is dependent on the protection and guaranties of USA for its survival is as biblical Jeremiah (not Obama's Reverend Jeremiah) said about Kingdom of Israel depending on Egypt it is like a person "Leaning on a broken cane that will perforate his hand"

Ray Winchester

Alex Baldor • Feb 16, 2018 at 13:31

I don't think RT news were thinking people were stupid. It was more like how the US MSM has brain washed people. The US had probably best media in the world. Most of it is too scared to say boo to a goose. Now it is beyond a joke. They have been filled with weak yes men. Probably asking when they can go for a pee. The BBC is by far the worst now. Making the news instead of reporting it.

Steven Payne • Feb 16, 2018 at 03:26

I think the key sentence in this whole piece is the one about civil war. I'm not violent and don't condone it, but ultimately what are we to do when, even when we win elections, we still don't win. What is left?

David Watson

Steven Payne • Feb 18, 2018 at 14:37

What is left is win the next election. And the next after that. It's only the losers who want to resort to war. The winners need to be prepared to counter that violence.

Ken Moon • Feb 16, 2018 at 00:05

"France is bacon". Really, Gracie? Oh Mark, you're just precious. Thanks for the laughs. It makes it so much easier to process crazy. You're great.

A Taylor Pohlman • Feb 15, 2018 at 23:47

Give'm hell, Mark. I checked online, and there were a few voices of reason on the left - Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and The Atlantic published articles that tried to explain the true origins of the phrase and an attempt to suggest that it was probably not racist. None quoted Obama. The comments sections of these articles were filled with the worst kind of hysteria, name-calling and unreasoned anger. The Atlantic is hoping that this leftist rage eventually causes a swing back to a more rational middle, as it burns out. However I am not sanguine about such an outcome, unfortunately.

Bob Belvedere

A Taylor Pohlman • Feb 16, 2018 at 08:20

A Taylor wrote: ...there were a few voices of reason on the left - Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and The Atlantic published articles that tried to explain the true origins of the phrase and an attempt to suggest that it was probably not racist. [emphasis mine]

That's the problem with the Soft Left, right there: they still left open the possibility that the phrase may, indeed, be racist.

No, no, no.

It is clear to any Sane person, to anyone with half a functioning brain, that the phrase 'Anglo-American' does not in any way meet the definition of the word.

Those media outlets are either playing a subtle scam on their readers or they are simply Dupes.

Alan Miller • Feb 15, 2018 at 22:45

"Thats Latin American for ..." - priceless!
However, seeing how much smaller a demographic it is than Latino American, I don't see those latin professors wielding much power :-)

Sol Cranfill • Feb 15, 2018 at 21:50

A good technique when interviewing leftist apologists on TV might be to ask, for example, "In which work of literature is the slogan 'Ignorance is power' from?" They present themselves as being enlightened and well educated - challenge them on their cred!

Ray Winchester • Feb 15, 2018 at 21:34

How do these people get voted in? We have that over here too. Absolute dimwits get elected because they are a member of a certain party. An example of Diane Abbott. "We will employ 10,000 extra police officers". Interviewer asks "how much will that cost" . She answered £300,000 after having a good hard think about it.
Yes that is £30 ($40) per year per officer.
They should have a minimum IQ test to get into any government office. Lets not put the bar to high. Maybe start at 70.
I would love to know the average IQ of the SNP in Scotland. I don't think you would be allowed to put the through a FOM request.

David Watson

Ray Winchester • Feb 16, 2018 at 13:07

A better test would be to qualify voters instead of candidates. Competent voters would assure competent government. The decline of US education assures incompetent government.

Carl Branstetter

David Watson • Feb 18, 2018 at 07:52

And there you have the fatal flaw of democracy with universal suffrage. Statistically speaking ... assuming a normal curve ... roughly 70% of any population is going to be mediocre and below. There is no such thing as a nation with 300,000,000 competent voters.

A nation of 300,000,000 employing democracy and universal suffrage guarantees the subjugation of the competent to the mindless horde.

David Watson

Carl Branstetter • Feb 18, 2018 at 12:22

The problem is defining competence. We currently assume everyone is. That's not working. "Elites" like to assume only they are competent. That leads to tyranny. So we'll need to find a compromise. Maybe mediocre is acceptable. We make drivers pass a test. Mediocre is good enough for that, but it filters out the clueless. Voting has greater impact than driving. Probably deserves similar preparation. Some will say voting is a Constitutional right, while driving is not. Bearing arms is also a Constitutional right, yet we still filter out some of the least reliable - felons and psychos and wife beaters. We already preclude felons from voting. Psychos and wife beaters would be a logical next step. A test on the Constitution would help identify problems. In English, of course. The founders didn't foresee a growing population of unassimilated citizens. Their problem was English loyalists, but society assured their decline. Article I Section 4 says Congress may at any time by law make or alter voting regulations. Fourteenth amendment will need some work. We'll get around to it, eventually.

George Pazin • Feb 15, 2018 at 20:57

Once again, words mean what libs say, nothing more, nothing less. Trying to convince the ignorant of their ignorance is a never ending pursuit.

Sol Cranfill • Feb 15, 2018 at 20:11

Obama is writing his third memoir, but his torch of incitement of black, inner-city violence against police officers has been picked up by Gavin Noose 'em and others looking for a two-fer of overthrowing a stable society that has a backstop of law and order and consolidating the black vote. Sorrry in advance for those of you who will pay for this kind of stunt with your lives when violence erupts and you get dragged out of your car and beaten to death by a mob.

Robert Bridges • Feb 15, 2018 at 19:55

I was wondering that if the "Anglo-American" system of law is so bad, what pre-tell is the best replacement for it from the numerous other examples of law and law enforcement throughout the world and world history. Let me guess... the Left would probably say "Sharia" as it is their favorite "minority" poster child or maybe a patchwork of law from every nook as Ginsberg would cherish (how is South Africa these days?)

Bob Belvedere

Robert Bridges • Feb 16, 2018 at 08:04

To avoid the charge that they're getting Theological [even though Ideologies are substitutes for Religion and act like them] methinks the Left would rather promote the Totalitarian-style system of 'Law' [see: Soviet Union, The].

Roger Scruton has described such a system better than I could:

...The law itself will be replaced by a Potemkin version that can be invoked whenever it is necessary to remind people of their subordinate position. This Potemkin law will not be a shy retreating thing, like law in civilized socialites, which exists precisely in order to minimize its own invocation. It will be a prominent and omnipresent feature of society, constantly invoked and paraded, in order to imbue all acts of the ruling party with an unassailable air of legitimacy. The 'revolutionary vanguard' will be more prodigal of legal forms and official stamps than any of the regimes it displaces, and the millions sent to their deaths will be granted an impeccable document to indicate that their end was rightly decided and officially decreed. I this way the new order will be both utterly lawless and entirely concealed by law

Except for the 'millions sent to their deaths' part, this could be a description of the current state of the Judicial System in America, eh?

The Constitution is laughed at and stomped on by the proverbial jackboot; The Supreme Court is a holy Gnostic Body of Virtuoso Possessors of 'The Secret Wisdom'; the Anglo-American tradition of administering Justice guided by Virtue is consigned to the swill bucket of False Consciousness — in short: we are a Lawless nation. You can no longer enter a Civil or Criminal Court will a reasonable expectation of receiving Justice as understood by our Anglo Ancestors. You can no longer count on Judges and Prosecutors, or even Defense Attorneys, to abide by the federal and state constitutions or The Rule Of Law.

That loss of reasonable expectation is the undeniable symptom that proves the Cancer Of Leftist Thinking has triumphed in America.

[Source for the Roger Scruton quote: A Political Philosophy: Arguments For Conservatism, Chapter 8: The Totalitarian Temptation]

Kate Smyth • Feb 15, 2018 at 19:40

"... ignorance is power". Brilliant, Mark. If only Obama's "Anglo-American gaffes" now went viral.

Kaybee • Feb 15, 2018 at 19:10

Too Stupid to Survive - this article makes me think that we are entering the beginning of Idiocracy. If Mr. Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho runs against President Trump in the next presidential race, it's going to be close. God help us.

John Q. Serf • Feb 15, 2018 at 18:16

As a middle-aged (post middle-aged?) parent of a single designer baby, I feel older than usual today. How many others will gather round the fire tonight and tell their kids "I'm so old I remember when 'Anglophile' referred to someone who admired England, the English, and English culture." Today it refers to someone who admires white people. Obviously making it more of an anachronism than a word in current usage. For who admires white people or their contributions to the world?

So what is Newspeak for someone with a penchant for Thatcher, high tea, and 80s British pop music?

Andrew A • Feb 15, 2018 at 17:14

Someone noticed and was offended that he said 'Anglo-American', but failed to notice and be offended by the fasces on the flag of the National Sheriffs' Association behind him. Where is Antifa on this? I appreciate Mark's wit, but it is impossible to understand the stupid mind.

David Coats

Andrew A • Feb 15, 2018 at 19:05

If the Sessions, Trump, and America haters had noticed the fasces on the flag they would have spent exactly the same amount of time understanding its meaning in the context of the NSA logo as they did understanding the meaning of Anglo-American and context of the speech in which it was used. Zero. Zip, Nada. But for the one or two mindless lefties who stumbled to SteynOnline, here's what the NSA logo means: The National Sheriffs' Association badge has heraldic significance. According to their website, the shield denotes defense, protection, and faith. The fasces denotes authority. The olive wreath denotes peace. The circle surrounding the emblem denotes eternity. The five points of the star denote friendship, guidance, honesty, integrity, and merit.

Bob Belvedere

Andrew A • Feb 15, 2018 at 20:21

The answer is as simple as their minds are: Antifa didn't notice the fasces because they were too involved throwing their feces.

Andrew A

David Coats • Feb 15, 2018 at 20:52

David,

"If the Sessions, Trump, and America haters had noticed the fasces"

But they didn't notice it, and instead went hysterical over 'Anglo-American'.

If you asked me to put myself in the shoes of a hysterical anti-American leftist and get upset about something frivolous, I would have picked the fasces over 'Anglo-American' without hesitation. How do they pick and choose what to be offended about? I am reminded of my youth when I was surrounded by such people all the time, but could not understand or connect to them at all. Mark Steyn satirizes the stupidity of these people, but there is more to it than that; they are impossible. There is a vacuous evil about them that defies all reason.

French fasces with your France's Bacon?

Michelle Dulak

Andrew A • Feb 15, 2018 at 21:22

Nothing wrong with fasces. Remember HRC's "Stronger together"? That's literally what fascism is.

David Coats

Andrew A • Feb 16, 2018 at 10:50

Vacuous evil is a good way of putting it. Hate is easy and haters are lazy. The haters grabbed onto Anglo-American instead of the fasces because that was easiest, in part because that's what their thinking masters directed them to do. The mass of the haters are intellectually lazy dolts enraptured by the charismatic pied pipers who satisfy their appetite for hate. Sadly, hate comes easily to we fallen humans. The hate of others distracts us from dealing with the reality of our own sinful natures.

Andrew A

David Coats • Feb 16, 2018 at 12:51

David,

I can accept that masses of lazy, hating, leftist dolts followed their virtue-signaling pied-piper masters' directions into hysteria as a distraction from their own sinful natures. That is easy to understand. But Mark's essay is about the masters, not the masses. Any student of Saul Alinsky or classic European social-democratic politics knows the central leftist principle of maximizing impact by fighting one issue at a time. The editors of CNN may seem stupid, but they are not so stupid as to be offended by both Session's 'Anglo-American' wording and the fasces symbolism of the NSA. Despite their ignorance (mere or intentional), they are sufficiently knowledgeable to know that leftist political tactics require them to pick only one issue. But why pick 'Anglo American'? If they could work up popular hysteria over Columbus, or statues of Robert Lee, or Stars of David at Pride parades, then they certainly can mobilize Antifa over bundles of sticks on a flag. But they didn't. In the absence of a natural explanation, and at the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, some sort of coordination among the "leftist masters" is happening to decide what is offensive-du-jour, and (more importantly) what is not.

I only wish Mark were 100% correct and that this is merely an issue of stupidity and ignorance. I invite Mark and other Steyn Club members to do some reverse analysis and ask themselves what else could the leftist masters be doing to fuel mass hysteria, but are not, and why are they holding back?

David Watson

David Coats • Feb 16, 2018 at 13:32

Our problem is that extremism is no longer extreme. It has become just another tactic to achieve selfish objectives. Competence is no longer useful if primal screaming and violence are allowed to succeed. We've taught several generations that emotion is sufficient, and over rules competence. Self esteem is all that matters. Emotion has become the norm in discourse and in policy, so competence is deprecated. That won't change until we restore the education system, and stop tolerating noisy incompetence. The dismally low labor participation rate is a primary symptom of tolerating incompetence in a modern economy. That's allowed to persist because we subsidize it with the growing welfare state. Stop subsidizing incompetence and they'll learn useful skills and go back to work. Then they'll have less time for extremist ideology, and less interest.

Robert Stewart • Feb 15, 2018 at 16:54

I agree with everything you said, but there remains the issue of what Sessions will do in response. A full throated defense of his knowledge of our heritage, or a weasel-worded apology? Romney, et al, are probably on the phone with him right now pressuring for the Recused Attorney General to retire meekly from the field. The Republican's disavowal of confrontation is one of the reasons the Newsoms of this world have been able to set the political agenda. Flatulence prospers in a vacuum.

John Pfeifer

Robert Stewart • Feb 15, 2018 at 17:18

Perhaps sing a few bars of White Christmas, to further his crime?

Debra Milligan • Feb 15, 2018 at 16:02

As you quoted Leigh Hunt in your fantastic analyze de texte of "Ozymandias": "Think how we shall take our own calm journey on for human sake . . ."

That river of denial is overflowing presently, here in America, and elsewhere. Three English poets sailed the river of reality 2 centuries ago. Poets, the brave ones, can still make that journey today, although the journey is less calm all around for all concerned. And for those who are concerned about the stuff of poets and civilization, the time for words and prose has neared its end.

The newsies won't print all the news fit to print for the call to action, the get-up-and-go save your civilization. Those words are too civilized in the true tradition of English poets and English lords. The silent majority isn't talking anymore. They're watching and waiting for the next chance to do something, be it an election or more walking away from the nonsense of the Experts.

Ergo, the public chatter that sounds like that library of Henry Higgins in the immortal film, My Fair Lady.

I like my bacon smoked. How's that for blazing saddles in any society?

Harry Knight • Feb 15, 2018 at 14:54

"NAACP Critical of Attorney General Jeff Sessions Latest Racially-Tinged Statement" This organization includes "Colored People" in its title. I understand that, as an Anglo-American (oops) with some Prussian thrown in, I may not use this expression.

Bob Belvedere • Feb 15, 2018 at 14:48

Mark wrote: What's the point of "debating" with...those such as Tribe, who surely know otherwise but are cheering on the know-nothings because they perceive it as advantageous to do so?

Tribe is, indeed, being Tribal — his tribe is Leftism [aka 'The Whothephucarwees'], but so are Schatz and Newsom. I'd give those slimy, worm-tongued Nancy Boys more credit.

They're either Leftist Leaders or Fellow Travellers. That means they have rejected Morality [ie: Honesty, Decency, and Truth] in order to advance their Ideology because the end they seek [Immanentizing The Eschaton] justifies any means.

Amanda • Feb 15, 2018 at 14:28

"skating deeper and deeper furrows into the ever thinner ice of the hyper-present tense" nails it.

Even CNN (well, an updated article; no idea what the first one said) went to some length to clarify that sheriff was an elected official unique to the English system inherited by America, that it was an extremely common phrase in jurisprudence used by attorneys like Sessions, etc., etc. The reaction was so visceral and disconnected from any broader context - I don't know that we are very far away from 'someone less well guarded' being clubbed on the way home, given the rhetoric.

Robert Bridges • Feb 15, 2018 at 14:27

Tacitus, at the twilight of the Roman Republic... "once we were burdened with crime, now we are burdened with laws."

This is another "known wolf" mini-Beslan attack... planned and executed. This is the softest of softest targets ... and with the highest yield of enhanced response from our snowflake progressive overseers. We have gone from gun clubs at schools (including NYC) and pocket knives every kid could carry to maximum security prisons...er...schools. The rifle designs haven't changed in over a century but California now bans century old hunting rifles as if they have changed but refuse to look in the mirror at their actions and values.

Laura Rosen Cohen • Feb 15, 2018 at 14:08

Whatever you do, don't try bumming a fag off anyone-you could probably get arrested for that nowadays. Not for buggery of course-OOPS don't say that either, but for a hate crime by the language mutawa.

Reid, far behind enemy lines in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Oregon • Feb 15, 2018 at 14:05

"One wonders, indeed, whether it wouldn't be better just to cut to the chase and get on with a full-scale civil war."

I have often wondered aloud if I will live to see the increasingly imminent collapse of the Republic. At other times I remind myself that it has already occurred.

Sauve qui peut.

James MacMaster • Feb 15, 2018 at 14:04

It's not a lot different up here in Canadabistan, where the shallow ignoramus who leads the country, along with his appointed-by-quota justice minister, could not restrain themselves from passing comment on a jury verdict that acquitted a white farmer in the shooting death of an Indian (indigenous) man. They knew nothing about the evidence tendered at the trial, yet within minutes of the verdict were sending tweets to the effect that the acquittal was a miscarriage of justice. And to a great extent the lazy, uncurious slorks who constitute a majority in our press corps, were content to run with that narrative.

Yet, instead of loudly and persistently demanding the resignation of the justice minister, our craven leader of Her Majesty's Opposition limply stated, "I think it is important that we remember politicians don't decide these types of things/ We have an independent judiciary."

To stupid indeed....and too cowardly....and too lazy.....etc

Laura Rosen Cohen

James MacMaster • Feb 15, 2018 at 16:00

OMG I thought you wrote Cannabistan. And that so, totally, fully, completetly suits our Bong Head PM. Dying!!!

Thomas Chapman • Feb 15, 2018 at 13:56

But we've advanced far beyond questions of intellectual rigor to intellectual rigor mortis...

Mark, you're at National...er a western civilization treasure. Nobody say's it better.

Christopher Martin

Thomas Chapman • Feb 15, 2018 at 14:26

I would call him our generation's PG Wodehouse, but with his predilection for unabashed forays into the state of modern sexuality, he's more of a hard R.

Bob Belvedere

Thomas Chapman • Feb 15, 2018 at 14:39

Well...he's certainly an Anglo-American Treasure.

Kate Smyth

Thomas Chapman • Feb 15, 2018 at 19:42

#IntellectualRigorMortis. Great stuff, Thomas, except those afflicted by it would not be bothered to work out its meaning.

Sam Williamson • Feb 15, 2018 at 13:49

Love the "Oh yeah?" line about Francis Bacon.

To quote Pink Floyd, "We don't no edgykuyshun." I wonder if Americans might re-evaluate their education system. Not the folks in charge. Good lord - what a lost cause that is! I mean the average parent. Instead of borrowing 6 figures to put your high school educated child through university for some questionable degree, borrow 6 figures to put your child through private school where they can teach such touchy subjects as Anglo-American History. Might that path less taken be a better way to avoid "intellectual rigor mortis."

At our current pace of deliberate stupidity, I'll give it less than a decade, until senators and professors begin to pepper their valuable insights with the word 'dude'.

Sam Williamson

Sam Williamson • Feb 15, 2018 at 13:58

To clarify the above, I mean private grade school and high school.

Daniel Ream

Sam Williamson • Feb 15, 2018 at 16:16

One of my classmates from university has gone on to become a tenured US professor and world-renowned cryptography researcher, and he takes great pride in peppering his class slides with Twitter GIFs and Internet memes. When I pointed out that were I paying thousands of dollars (US, even) for a class on cryptography I'd expect better of the prof than shallow pop culture jokes during class time, he insisted he wouldn't want to work at a university where that wasn't allowed.

The Ninny State / Alex Peck • Feb 15, 2018 at 13:39

The playwright George Ruggle (1575-1622) comes to mind. He introduced the Latin term ignoramus, an Anglo legal term of his day, to all as the name of a title character Ignoramus, a lawyer. The farce was a favorite of King James I.

Nicola Timmerman • Feb 15, 2018 at 13:25

And how about that Judeo-Christian heritage?

Paul Harmon

Nicola Timmerman • Feb 15, 2018 at 21:41

Exactly so.

David Coats

Nicola Timmerman • Feb 16, 2018 at 12:08

Uh Oh! Now you've triggered untold millions with your hate speech, Nicola!

Nicola Timmerman • Feb 15, 2018 at 13:22

Zeus? Who dat?

Al Man from CA • Feb 15, 2018 at 13:14

Mark is right, Newsom is an idiot. Out here in CA, Newsome and Gov. Moonbeam blame fires and floods on global warming. They were caused by faulty power lines and forced retaining of overgrowth. We are in drought but pour billions of gallons of water into the ocean to "protect" some obscure species at the expense of farmers and other citizens. The state is broker than broke but Moonbeam claims a surplus. We now have the highest poverty rate in the U.S. We give illegal aliens drivers licences and automatically register them to vote. This truly is a real-life version of Monty Pythons "Twit Olympics"!

Adam • Feb 15, 2018 at 13:08

As a consequence of the near century long project to dismantle the bourgeoisie in the wake of the unfortunate tendency of the proles to line up behind the flag, the west has managed to create a wonderful contradiction: the signal marker of being an educated bourgeois is a carefully honed sense of protective stupidity (aka wilful ignorance). Why facts, evidence, a sense of historical perspective that's all so pathetically protestant, Anglo and narrow let's focus our studies on the dance rituals of Papua New Guinea that'll give the youth some broad perspective and disabuse them of the notion that there might be something special about the western cultural inheritance. Finally you arrive at the point where there has been a complete loss of knowledge and the bourgeois is no longer willfully ignorant but just plain ignorant notwithstanding a half a million dollars of Harvard tuition. That's what you might call the Tribe gap. Lawrence Tribe is willfully ignorant. Sen. Schatz is merely ignorant. The arc of history is long but it bends towards ruin.

Paul Harmon • Feb 15, 2018 at 13:06

You know what's really sad? My 7 and 8 year old grand children could have spotted the flaw in Lawrence Tribe's statement. They have a long life ahead of them in a world filled with imbeciles. Pity Noah and Quinley, and pray for them occasionally.

Christopher Martin • Feb 15, 2018 at 12:54

I lived in the Washington, D.C. metro region in the late '90s, and remember well an incident in 1999 in which a top aide to Mayor Anthony Williams, a white gentleman named David Howard, used the word "niggardly" in a discussion of ways to manage a tight budget. Cue the indignant hue and cry from the hysterically offended- to which Williams responded by accepting Howard's immediate resignation. I was incredulous that Howard, innocent of anything other than a larger-than-average lexicon, would resign over other people's ignorance, and even more amazed (and disgusted) that Williams would let him do so, rather than taking the opportunity to edify his constituents.
Several weeks later, Williams admitted that he had "acted hastily" in accepting Howard's resignation, and invited him to return. So, happy ending, right? Not so fast. Upon his return, Howard said, "I just feel very pleased that this whole thing has a silver lining. The silver lining is that this has led to a discussion that can help everyone understand each other better. . . . I used to think it would be great if we could all be colorblind. That's naive, especially for a white person, because a white person can't afford to be colorblind. They don't have to think about race every day. An African American does."
This idiocy has had another 20 years to infect, inculcate and erode our discourse. I don't see a way back.

Mark replies:

Yes, I remember writing about that, Christopher. May be time to dust it off and re-post.

Gwendolyne Curran

Christopher Martin • Feb 15, 2018 at 13:47

Please do. I also have run into that problem. I used the word niggardly to refer to someone that was thrifty. The person I said it to had a conniption, she refused to accept the difference between the two words, even though I used two dictionaries (the Canadian Oxford and the British Oxford) to prove the difference in spelling and meaning. Such is our society today.

Robert Bridges

Christopher Martin • Feb 15, 2018 at 14:30

And then there was the teacher who used the term "homophone" in an English class and was ripped. The Newspeak Dictionary gets shorter and shorter. Orwell was an optimist!

Laura Rosen Cohen

Christopher Martin • Feb 15, 2018 at 16:10

And the "chink" in the armour "scandal" with NBA star Jeremy Lin...

Michelle Dulak

Laura Rosen Cohen • Feb 15, 2018 at 21:42

Really? I thought that was just a George Will joke from a couple of decades ago. Along with "a nip in the air." Of course it wasn't he who made the joke; it was some university (I don't remember which) that had banned "chink" and "nip" in all contexts. I tell my cat every morning, "No nippy! No bitey!," and I am not admonishing him against being Japanese, any more than I'm telling him not to join a SWAT team when I say "No swatty!"

Tolkien has a character (Aragorn?) say to another (Faramir?) "No niggard are you." Sooner or later, someone will notice, and LOTR will land on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Except that its name won't be in Latin. Too Catholic, that. "List of Banned Books" will do.

Michelle Dulak

Robert Bridges • Feb 15, 2018 at 22:28

Ah, homophones. Two words that sound the same. Homo=same; phone=sound. But "Homo" means only the one thing; even Homo sapiens is off the list now.

FWIW, I've made a list of treble/quadruple homophones. But apparently the very word is now suspect.

Richard Harrison

Michelle Dulak • Feb 15, 2018 at 22:51

"List of inappropriate books", more likely.

William Picou

Richard Harrison • Feb 16, 2018 at 13:39

'Intolerant' is more likely to be employed than 'inappropriate'.

It's the go to word for the perennially aggrieved.

Mark Shere • Feb 15, 2018 at 12:46

Mark, may I take it one step further based on yesterday's school murders? The "sheriff... keeps law enforcement close to and accountable to people" in the local community. Today's reports are that the FBI received warning and responded -- after a fashion -- to the shooter's public statement that he would attack a school. The reports are also that the school administration and everybody else "knew" the alleged murderer was a threat. And, as you have observed so many times, the response of federalized law enforcement and a bureaucratized educational system was once again utterly and tragically ineffective. If only, if only, a true sheriff "close to and accountable to the people" of the community could have used personal judgment and common sense about how to deal with the known risk posed by this evilly twisted young man.

Mark replies:

That's very true. He was, as with the ISIS guys, a "known wolf".

Giovanna Visconti • Feb 15, 2018 at 12:45

I can't keep saying: Marcus at his Maximus-est, but...

There's no need to add anything to this piece. And whoever presumes to do so had better be certain he's up to it. Good luck with that. You're in the Major Leagues here.

Thank you, Mr. Steyn. Few if any defend our heritage as brilliantly as you do, and few, if any, can crucify so perfectly those too stupid to benefit from it.

Fern • Feb 15, 2018 at 12:43

Goodness, none of these above mentioned peoples have ever seen the most famous Sheriff of them all, Sheriff Bart in Blazing Saddles.

Tom Korte • Feb 15, 2018 at 12:39

Sir Francis Bacon.
"France is bacon"
That's awesome!
Perhaps if France had more bacon they'd have fewer problems...

Thomas Weeks • Feb 15, 2018 at 12:31

Thank you, Mr. Steyn. I am a septuagenarian American citizen who has been through Georgia's public schools , service in the U.S. Navy, college in Georgia and graduate school at the University of Florida, and I have noted the decline of America's collective intelligence. Every time some flannel-mouthed product of today's "Higher Education" gets all dreamy-eyed and extols the intelligence and virtuousness of the snowflake generation I just shake my head and hope I don't survive too deeply into the dystopia that seems to be our destiny.

Daniel McGuire • Feb 15, 2018 at 12:24

Great article. We remain firmly on the path that Kornbluth anticipated in 1951 with his "Marching Morons" short story (http://mysite.du.edu/~treddell/3780/Kornbluth_The-Marching-Morons.pdf), which later inspired the movie "Idiocracy".

Thomas Weeks

Daniel McGuire • Feb 15, 2018 at 12:56

Would you buy that for a quarter?

Mark Shere

Daniel McGuire • Feb 15, 2018 at 13:10

Love the reference to the Marching Morons! I write only because it is so rare that I enjoy a modern remake more than the original, but I heartily recommend the re-telling of the Marching Morons in the short story "Pump Six" by Paolo Bacigalupi. This re-telling is included with other excellent tales in Bacigalupi's collection, Pump Six and Other Stories, available at a certain on-line retailer. The stories are not politically correct at all, which is rare these days in sci-fi, and I think Pump Six actually has a stronger moral voice and keener eye than Kornbluth's rightly renowned work.

Rich • Feb 15, 2018 at 12:24

Brilliant, as always. If everything is outrage-worthy, nothing is.

Thomas Ryan • Feb 15, 2018 at 12:20

Interesting that while Attorney General of Alabama, Sessions used the traditional Anglo-American legal system to put the KKK high poobah in prison for murdering a black man as well as bankrupting the Alabama KKK out of existance. As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.